Imagine hordes of American theocrats, white supremacists, nativists, NRA worshippers, all in an "open carry" orgy, descending on the Republican convention in Cleveland in the wake of Orlando, Dallas, Nice and Baton Rouge.

What could possibly go wrong?

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Welcome to a fully armed and dangerous spectacular featuring, for instance, the Traditionalist Worker Party(TWP) -- allied with the Golden State Skinheads (GSS) -- sending a posse to the GOP show to "make sure that the Donald Trump supporters are defended from the leftist thugs." Cleveland's courts are ready to process up to 1,000 arrestees daily, and stay open 20 hours a day. Strip clubs are "pumped for Trump." Certified mayhem overall is bound to add another meaning to the rock n' roll mantra, "Cleveland Rocks."

Trouble at the Trumpence joint

Compounding the mayhem, there's the Trump-Pence (Trumpence) fracas. Donald Trump remains visibly frustrated by his own appointment of Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate. He reportedly spent last Thursday night frantically trying to back down. He was furious that the news leaked before he had a chance to personally tell his double-trouble favorites -- pompous twat Newt Gingrich and over-sized blowhard Chris Christie -- about his decision.

And even in the first Trumpence joint interview this past Sunday, the best exchange was actually this one:

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PENCE: Donald Trump, this good man...will be a great president of the United States.

TRUMP: I love what he just said.

It's been fascinating to watch how Trump is visibly bored to tears with his dull as a stale cheeseburger new friend, who has called himself "a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order."

"Lil' Mikey," as he's widely known, is not exactly the brightest bulb in the room -- any room. The fact that he was a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee does not exactly give him foreign-policy cred. After all, what really matters to Lil' Mikey is to install an evangelical Sharia in the United States of America.

Pence was imposed on Trump by his Richelieu, Paul Manafort, as well as Trump's family, for purely realpolitik reasons. The small town boy from Indiana will do well in the Rust Belt states; allegedly transfer Ted Cruz voters to Trump; appease Republican right-wing fanatics who see The Donald as a depraved, gay-hugging, pro-choice, end of days hedonist New Yorker; and if the ticket makes it, teach The Donald about Washington's beyond-byzantine ways.

Trump though couldn't care less about all these alleged pluses because he's governed by his guts, not realpolitik.

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A much juicier Trump appointment would have been retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, who was fired as Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) chief (2012-2014) because -- correctly -- he predicted that Obama's covert war in Syria would spawn the ISIS/ISIL/Daesh Frankenstein. And then he doubled down, saying that the flourishing of Daesh was in fact a "willful decision" taken by the White House.

Not only Flynn was against Team Obama's obsession in weaponizing "moderate rebels" in Syria but he had warned that getting rid of Gaddafi via NATO would open a Northern African Pandora's box.

Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia (more...)

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